FALTER

CHAPTER 25: The scorched town (4)

A what?

Imti was a little gobsmacked by this sudden turn of conversation topics, but he saw the woman looking intently at him and decided to oblige.

"Well, um. My mom sometimes tells me stories and, erm," Imti stuttered. Remembering religious stories wasn't his strong suite, and Mrs Jeong seemed to pick up on this.

"Yes, there's definitely many stories about them in our belief's, isn't there? But they all tell these stories in such a bad, twisted way. You see, I was born into Mortallurgy, much like you were, and I was never the most pious or attentive follower. I would pray and I would study but I never really believed in it. Well, most of it. One corner of these stories always interested me, and those were the stories of the witches. Men and women born with powers that allowed them a level of control over our world that normal folks didn't have. And that scared them."

She adjusted her sitting posture.

"So we did what we do best, and we hunted and killed all these people. But the stories say they, that before they died out, they created devices, artifacts that had power, and some of these are scattered round vaguely in the books we study. And well, I'll be crude with you both here - I thought it was the coolest thing ever."

Her eyes were sparkling with a light neither Imti nor Ari had seen much of before, and as such, the two children were suddenly magnetized to this conversation. Ari had sat through these lectures before, and she wasn't supremely interested in hearing it again, but something about seeing Imti's interest in it caused her to lean into the story as well.

"Anyways, I'm sure you've seen one of these devices already - it was the one the Leader brought with him to bless our... wedding." Her voice hovered on the word.

"Of course he's seen it. He was crying about it," Ari snorted, causing a disapproving glare to be shot at her.

Imti almost got to his feet in annoyance, but Mrs Jeong put her arm between the children. Munching angrily on his sandwich, Imti continued staring daggers at Ari.

"As I was saying, the device you saw the other day is called a Drive and-"

"It was made by a witch?"

"Yes."

Imti was confused. He had always heard these supernatural stories and tuned them out. Yet, here Mrs Jeong was, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice, telling him that all of it was actually real. During this lull, Imti took a quick glance around his surroundings - the grass weaving in the air, Duron fishing from the pier, the path leading up to the town, Ari sitting across from him - and wondered how all of these things existed in the same world. Still, as Mrs Jeong had put it, it was cool and so Imti continued paying attention.

"These devices, these Drives, rather, there used to be a lot of them but they all either got lost or destroyed. Only a few remain and the one you saw the other day - that one has a special power that I n- that's really helpful. See, Imti, that one can heal you. From any disease, or wound or anything, if you put it on, it can heal you. That's why the only time the Leader brings it out is during a wedding, so he can bless both bride and groom with healthy new bodies at the start of their life together."